Eighteen years is a long time for the world to change, and CeeLo Green and Danger Mouse return as Gnarls Barkley with their third and final album Atlanta. The wait has been entirely worth it, sounding like two artists who refused to put something out until they were certain it was right.

The patience is audible in every single moment. The spooky, unsettling melancholy that ran through their breakout single Crazy is gone, and in its place is something warm and certain of itself. Atlanta is driven by thankfulness and joy, and is at its heart a gospel record with one of the most extraordinary vocal talents of his generation sounding more at home than ever. The reference points are the quiet storm soul music of Al Green and Smokey Robinson yet produced with a twenty-first century computer clunk that keeps it rooted firmly in the present. Danger Mouse’s production is deliberately spacious and uncluttered, and this restraint is one of the album’s greatest strengths because what fills that space is CeeLo’s soaring voice, held with glorious patience.

He keeps you hanging on every note, weightless and warm. This is Sunday morning music, largely just drums, vocals and very little clutter working because the performance at the centre is so compelling. Much of the album exists in an unhurried downbeat register as a series of snapshots of different moods from thankful to tender to venomous. Line Dance is one of the punchier moments with a groovy Bruno Mars quality to it that’s celebratory and light-footed. Turn Your Heart Back On feels like classic Gnarls Barkley with a northern soul swing, punchy momentum, gorgeous vocals in the background and lovely string embellishments with CeeLo holding the final beautiful note in the finest tradition of soul singing.

Let Me Be is built on earthy, grounded backing vocals and a chorus of enormous weight without resorting to extravagant instrumentation, feeling like ancient gospel music. Cyberbully brings the teeth, both huge and deliberately constructed in the style of the very target at which its rage is aimed. The Be Be King is a naughty and extremely cool shuffle with unapologetic swagger that’s deeply fun, and Sorry brings the album to its most vulnerable point with a deep and raw ballad that calls Rag’n’Bone Man’s heartfelt exposure to mind.

The album closes on the murky disco club groove Accept It in a joyful send-off that’s not trying to be modern. Atlanta is a record that believes in the power of soul music to hold all of the complexity of human life, delivered by one of the greatest voices of his era. It’s a modern soul classic, and a farewell worth waiting for. Deeply rooted in the southern gospel tradition of the South, this is a record about their hometown that transcends local geography through the power of great songwriting, rejecting modernity while remaining vital and present.

Atlanta is the perfect full stop to the Gnarls Barkley story, returning one last time to remind us why they mattered. A great record for anyone who believes that real, deep soul music still has something important to say.